Into the Wild Aragorn x Oc
by MundieORiley On Temp. Hiatus
Summary: Book One Of the Hireaeth Trilogy Imagine yourself suddenly disappearing from this Earth and whisked away to another place entirely. Cheyanne found herself in precisely that situation, dumped into a strange world filled with monsters and magic and Rangers from the North. Why was she plucked up from her backyard and placed in such a world? And how is she ever going to get home?
1. One

Author's Note: Just a head's up, in my Oc's universe, LotR doesn't exist for simplicity's sake and I'll be mixing events from the books and the movies to fit my purposes. Updates Fridays.

With lots of love

 **Mundie**

In a burst of blinding and multicolored light, Cheyanne falls flat on her face with a muffled thump, the force of her landing knocking the air from her lungs. She lays there on the ground for several moments, waiting for the vertigo and dizziness to fade as she attempts to catch her breath without inhaling any unwanted objects. When she can finally breathe again and the ground beneath her stops spinning, she slowly raises her head, squinting as her eyes adjust to the dim light filtering down through the... trees? With a groan, Cheyanne pushes herself stiffly into a sitting position, brushes away the leaves and dirt that stuck to her face, and takes in her new and unfamiliar surroundings with wide eyes.

She sits among the remains of some sort of ancient and crumbling village overrun with dark ivy and large and tangled tree roots; it gives her a sense of familiarity, like the feeling you get when you go someplace that looks like something you've seen in a photo before. The canopy overhead is dark and densely interwoven, only allowing weak rays of watery sunlight through their boughs. The air is chilly and ominously still, like the forest creeping up on the collapsing structures is holding its breath. The stillness causes an uneasy shiver to travel down her spine and she feels as if she is being watched.

Cheyanne shakily stands to her feet and crosses her arms over her chest, the thin fabric of her worn t-shirt doing very little to keep out the chill. However, the temperature is the last thing on her mind. All she can think about is wondering how in God's green Earth she ended up in the middle of a dark and completely unfamiliar forest. Shaking her head and grunting to herself, she decides the only thing to be done is to walk and see if she can't find a way out of this forest. So, brushing a loose strand of dark hair away from her face, she does, leaving the dilapidated and somehow oddly familiar ruins behind.

Or at least she tries to.

The gigantic moss covered tree roots and the lack of any clear path makes it extremely hard to get anywhere but nowhere fast. Why do there have to be trees with roots whole feet taller than Cheyanne and a forest that seems out to get anyone that happens to stumble, or in her case, fall on her face in? She's lost count of how many times she's had to double back thanks to the roots looming up in the dimness. It feels like she's been wandering in circles for hours, but in actuality, only one has probably passed. To make things worse, the chilly air has sunken into her very bones and she desperately wishes she had thought to wear a sweater before settling down with a book in her backyard.

Just as the thought of home crosses her mind, Cheyanne stumbles through a thin layer of underbrush and finds herself tripping right back into the place she started.

Stepping into the center of the clearing, she does a quick circle and throws up her hands. "Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me!"

But in mid-motion, she freezes, her breath catching in her throat.

There, several yards to her right down a critter-trail she didn't notice before, are three... _Things_.

The only word that comes to mind when she looks at them is _monstrous_. Their skin is a sickly blue and splotched with black, like hideous bruises. Their eyes are bulbous and yellow, set in misshapen skulls. Behind cruelly curled lips are jagged rock like teeth, broken and discolored. Their gaits are uneven and staccato, and their spines crooked, causing them to be half bent over like they carry an invisible weight on their backs.

Suddenly, the three of them stop in their tracks, hideous eyes bent on Cheyanne.

Her feet are moving before she even realizes it and she's sprinting in the opposite direction as fast as she can. Branches whip her face and arms and open up small, stinging cuts, but she barely feels it thanks to adrenaline pumping through her veins. Never in her whole life has she felt this terrified or run this fast. And the sound of those hideous things pursuing her, cackling and whooping, spurs her on like a cracking whip. They sound as if they are drawing closer with every step and Cheyanne forces her legs to go even faster, ignoring her protesting muscles and the increasing heaviness of her panicked breaths.

A huge root looms up in front of her and she screeches to a halt, leaves scattering beneath her heels. She only pauses a second before cutting to the left and forcing her way through the underbrush. Cheyanne hears those things behind her making an even bigger racket than she is, the sound of blade parting branches following their voices as they call after her. Cheyanne shoves interwoven limbs aside and struggles her way through bushes, ignoring the plants digging into her legs through her jeans and the stinging in her hands. After about thirty seconds of desperate struggling, Cheyanne breaks through the underbrush and low hanging tree limbs.

However, thanks to her forward momentum, she loses her balance and careens halfway into the small clearing, arms pinwheeling as she stumbles. Cheyanne's feet slip on the damp leaves strewn about and go right out from under her like she was trying run on ice. She lands on her hands and knees, stinging pain shooting up her limbs. Cheyanne scrambles back to her feet, her head whipping from side to side as she looks for a speedy way to get out of this situation. There are no clear paths, only the broken trail she made on her way in. She spins back around as the sound of her pursuers draws much, much closer. The underbrush before her waves wildly and the voices reach their peak before those monsters burst from the foliage.

Cheyanne freezes, eyes as wide as dinner plates as the monsters, blades gleaming dully in the weak light, shuffle closer to her.

"Well, well, well, what have we here?" The first monster's mouth twists into a cruel parody of a smile.

Cheyanne shrinks away as the three hideous creatures step closer to her, slowly fanning out like predators stalking their prey. Her throat constricts, trapping her voice in the form of a hard lump.

The creature on her right sizes her up, yellow eyes running down her body. "Interesting choice of apparel, missy. Seen nothing like _that_ before." It gestures at her jeans with a twisted hand.

Cheyanne shrinks further under the creature's threatening tone of voice and scrutinization. She takes a step back, breathing heavy, heart pounding so hard in her chest, it's a wonder no one else can hear it.

 _This has to be a dream, some sick, demented dream._

The one farthest to her left lets out a strange clucking growl as it shifts its weight. "Do ya think she's the one?"

The first monster inches forward, head tilting this way and that, reminding Cheyanne of a bird of prey. "No sense in leaving her here." The monster's cruel smile returns. "Can't let the lost little bird fend for herself."

Broken and guttural laughter circulates between the three of them and, to Cheyanne's rapidly mounting horror, they slowly begin to converge. Cheyanne casts around wildly for anything, anything at all to defend herself with. She steps back from every step forward the monsters take, her panic mounting and mounting the tighter into a corner she becomes. Her brain races, desperate to think of a way out of this that doesn't end with her becoming a kebab. When Cheyanne's back presses against a large tree trunk and her fate nearly becomes sealed, her foot knocks into something solid. She looks down, realizing it's a good sized and thick tree branch. Without thinking, Cheyanne scoops it up and brandishes it.

"Back off!" Her knuckles are white around the branch, the bark digging into her skin. The sting helps ground her a little. "I mean it- stay away!"

The three of them stop just short of their blades touching Cheyanne's branch, but the leader directly in front of her begins to laugh, a hideous, twisted laugh. The other two follow suit and the longer they laugh at her, the more her terror rises. Her body decides she's had enough and her fight or flight instincts kick into overdrive. With a yell, she strikes out at the leader's head as hard as she can. The creature flinches away just enough to where the blow only glances off. Taking the opportunity, Cheyanne strikes again, this time hitting the arm of the monster on her right, causing its blade to thump to the leaf-strewn ground.

But before she can even think to run again, a grotesque arm curls around her midsection and presses her firmly against an armored body. She struggles for several seconds, crying out and flailing with the branch but the kiss of a cool blade against the side of her face makes her freeze immediately.

"Drop the branch, you stupid wench." The blade presses more and Cheyanne obediently allows the piece of wood to slip from her fingers.

The first monster she hit regains its bearings and bends a glare on her, it's lip curling away from its yellowed teeth. " _Idiotic girl_." The monster approaches her, blade raised in a threatening manner.

The remaining monster scoops up its weapon and spits on the ground at her feet. "Go on, cut up that pretty face! Teach her a lesson!"

The creature's arm tightens around her waist and its disgusting hot breath ghosts over her ear and the side of her face. "Didn't say nothing about unharmed, did he?"

Those demented smiles appear on their faces again and Cheyanne's stomach drops with dread. Time feels as if it slows down when the knife digs deeper into her skin, deep enough to begin parting flesh. Cheyanne cries out and begins to struggle, kicking her legs and flailing her arms wildly. The monster growls and draws the blade down, tearing open the soft flesh of Cheyanne's cheek.

 _Please, wake up, wake up!_

Just as she makes her silent plea, a sharp whistling permeates the air, followed by a sickening _thunk_ just beside Cheyanne's ear. The monster's arm around her slackens and the knife falls away from her face. She drops to her knees and twists around, eyes widening as she beholds the creature lying dead behind her.

The shaft of an arrow protrudes from its skull.

Cheyanne's head whips back around fast enough to nearly cause whiplash when another whistling sound cuts through the air. She watches in shock as this second arrow embeds deeply in the head of the next monster, causing it to drop dead to the ground. The remaining creature tries to run, but the third arrow is too fast. This one, too, falls to the ground, dead.

There are several moments of dead silence as Cheyanne's wheeling mind catches up with what just happened.

The blank eyes of the dead monsters stare into her soul and her stomach knots painfully when she notices black blood, as thick as syrup, leaks from around the arrows and onto the ground. The rancid smell reaches her nostrils, sharp and disgusting. The scent and sight twist her stomach sharply and Cheyanne turns to the side and vomits up the contents of her lunch.

When her stomach stops convulsing, Cheyanne draws the back of her hand across her mouth as she turns away from the mess. She looks numbly down at her hand when it comes away wet, red smeared across her knuckles.

Blood.

The stinging in her face kicks up ten notches when it occurs to her that she's bleeding. Cheyanne presses a hand to her face and looks around again, her heart rate picking up with a jolt. Someone shot those monsters and Cheyanne doesn't want to be kneeling completely defenseless on the ground when that person decides to show themselves. They've probably been watching her this whole time she's spent on the ground. With this thought in mind, Cheyanne stands shakily to her feet, avoiding looking at the prone bodies lying around her. She steadies herself on the tree behind her for a second before she picks up the discarded branch.

Clutching it in one hand and keeping the other pressed to her bleeding face, Cheyanne calls out in as strong a voice as she can manage. "Who's there?"

She immediately wants to slap herself. Who's there? _Really_? Way to be the stereotypical character that dies in the first five minutes of an episode of _Supernatural_.

There are several moments of silence and during that time Cheyanne is sure another arrow is going to fly through the air and end her life as swiftly as those creatures' lives. But instead, the foliage shrouding the way she came in moves softly and someone, with barely more than a whisper of leaves, steps out into the clearing.


	2. Two

Author's Note: Hey guys! I hope you're all well! Just wanted to let you know, if you're confused about anything, let me know and I'll clarify it for ya and fix it in the story! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Mundie

The first thing Cheyanne notices about them is the long sword hanging from their belt and how their hand rests on the hilt. The next is the end of a bow poking out from behind one shoulder. They wear a dark and mud splattered tunic and cloak, with the hood drawn up shrouding the majority of their features in shadow. Cheyanne stiffens further, her fingers spasming on the tree branch, as the cloaked person slowly steps further into the clearing and stops about a yard away from her. They survey the clearing, head turning left and right, before their posture relaxes, hand slipping from the hilt of the sword to their side. Cheyanne's posture remains tight and defensive, nerves strung far too tightly to trust a stranger after what just happened to find her.

Cheyanne widens her stance a little. "Who are you? What do you want?"

The person reaches up and draws down their hood, revealing their face; It's a man, not too terribly older than Cheyanne in appearance with hair a few shades darker than hers that falls nearly to his shoulders. "It is alright," the man says as he abducts his arms, palms facing forward. "I mean you no harm." His voice is slightly lowered in a soothing manner. "Did you see any more of them?"

Cheyanne pauses, staring the man down, and after a few moments, her body slowly relaxes. "No, I didn't." She glances down at the nearest dead creature and cringes a little. "Did you kill them?" When the man nods, she lets the branch lower to her side, but she doesn't let it go. "Who are you?"

The man stoops down and pulls an arrow from the nearest monster's head with a _squelch_. "They call me Strider," he says as he moves on to the next. The arrowhead separates from the shaft when he pulls it out with a sharp crack and he tucks the damaged shaft into a sheath on his back Cheyanne didn't notice before. "I am a Ranger from the North." He takes a couple steps closer to her, scanning her with sharp eyes.

Cheyanne practically jumps back thanks to her fried nerves and her heel catches on something solid. She tumbles backward with a yelp, the branch falling from her hand as she lands roughly on her rear. Cheyanne's throat constricts when she looks down at her legs slung over the prone corpse of the monster that cut her face. She chokes on an exclamation and scrambles away from the body until her back bumps into a tree. Her stomach turns violently and, for a moment, she is sure she's going to be sick again. But she clenches her jaw and turns her face away from the corpse. The nausea passes after a moment and her jaw relaxes. Cheyanne then turns her head and side eyes Strider, sure she is going to see some form of judgment in his eyes. But when their gazes meet for a moment, she sees nothing of the sort there.

"I apologize," Strider says as he steps closer to the monster while also giving Cheyanne plenty of room. "I did not mean to frighten you." He crouches down by the body in such a way most of it is blocked from her sight and gently eases the arrow out without letting it make a sound. Before he stands back up, he turns the corpse onto its stomach, effectively hiding the grotesque face. Strider turns to face Cheyanne, still crouched down so their eyes are level. "I assure you, I will not harm you."

Cheyanne studies him for a moment in a new light. "You're sure going through a lot of trouble for a complete stranger." He looks like a rough, potentially threatening person, but the way he has acted so far contradicts his travel-worn and tough exterior. "Why save me? You don't know me from Timbuktu."

"I could not very well let those orcs kill you," Strider says as his brow furrows. "Whether I know you from "Timbuktu", as you say, or not."

Cheyanne stands shakily to her feet and looks down at Strider. "No one does anything for no reason," she says as she watches him rise fluidly from his crouching position. "The odds are ridiculously slim that you'd just happen upon me in time to save my neck. So why were you here?"

In the back of her mind, a small voice whispers to her that she's being awfully rude to someone who just saved her life. A little twinge of guilt for that causes Cheyanne to bite her lip and deflate. She breaks eye contact with Strider and dabs at the gently bleeding cut on her face. If he wanted to hurt her, he would have done it already.

"You have been through quite an ordeal," Strider says and the understanding tone in his voice causes Cheyanne to look back up at him. "It is not easy to trust a stranger, especially in times like these." He pauses breaking eye contact for a moment. "What is your name?"

Cheyanne almost makes a comment about how he hasn't really answered any of her questions, but she bites the sharp words back. "Cheyanne. My name's Cheyanne."

Strider repeats her name quietly as if testing the sound of it and seeing how it feels on his tongue. "A strange name- where do you come from? Surely nowhere in these parts?"

Cheyanne shifts her weight and bites her lip again. It is painfully obvious, thanks to her clothes especially, that she's not from around… wherever the heck she ended up. Should she be honest with him and just spit it out? Or should she hold her cards close to her chest as he seems to be doing? After all, the only straight answer she's gotten out of him is his name, if it even is his real name.

"I'll cut you a deal," she says. "If you answer my question truthfully, then I will answer yours truthfully, agreed?" Cheyanne sticks out her hand and waits as she looks at Strider with slightly raised eyebrows. He looks between her face and her offered hand, eyebrows furrowing in clear confusion and this causes Cheyanne to crack a little smile. "You're supposed to shake it if you agree to the deal."

With the same confused look on his face, Strider reaches out and awkwardly grasps the end of her fingers, in a similar way a gentleman would kiss a lady's hand, and gives them one decisive shake.

Cheyanne can't help how her smile widens. "Okay then, you've agreed." Her face grows more serious as she lets her arm go back to her side. "How'd you find me out here just in time like you did?"

Strider shifts his weight, clearly weighing his next words carefully. "I was asked to keep an eye out for someone matching your description in this area. Someone lost and clearly not from Middle Earth."

Cheyanne blanches. "Hold up. Did you just say 'Middle Earth'?" Strider merely nods, an enlightened look appearing on his face. "How'd whoever 'informed' you know I'd even be here? And the last time I looked, I was on _Earth_ , in America. Are you telling me that's not the case?"

Strider nods again and digs around in his pack. "Yes, you are on Middle Earth near the outskirts of Fangorn Forest." He produces a worn cloth from his pack and offers it to her. "Here, for your face." Cheyanne absently accepts the rag and holds it to her cut, her mind reeling. "The fact you know not where you are proves you are who I was looking for. As for how I knew that, wizards are mysterious and rarely reveal their secrets."

Wizards, Middle Earth, Fangorn Forest?

Cheyanne's head spins with questions that probably don't have answers. The pain in her face and the all too vivid sights and smells around her tell her she is not dreaming. This is real.

Somehow and for no reason apparent to her, Cheyanne has been dumped into a world entirely different from her own, a world inhabited by things that were only fantasy to her an hour ago.

A gentle hand squeezing her shoulder causes Cheyanne to break from her whirling thoughts and emotions. She looks up at Strider, taking in the kind look in his eyes.

"I cannot begin to imagine how this must feel for you," he says before taking his hand away. "But Gandalf asked me, when I found you, to take you with me so that he may meet you and explain how and why you came to be here."

It takes several moments for Cheyanne to catch up with what Strider just told her and she takes the cloth away, numbly examining the blood stained material. She presses it back to her left cheek when she feels more blood begin to well.

What other choice does she have but to go with Strider? She'd die out here in days or less on her own. Besides, Strider's been nothing but kind to her. All his actions point to him being perfectly trustworthy.

Cheyanne lets a slow breath. "Alright, I'll go with you," she says. "Maybe this Gandalf you mentioned will know how to send me home."

"Perhaps," Strider says as he gestures with a hand for her to follow. "Come, it is a long journey."

Cheyanne follows him out of the clearing, casting a final glance over her shoulder and repressing a shudder. The trek back out of the forest is a relatively short one. Strider's steps are confident and he obviously knows where he's going. Cheyanne crunches along beside him, still keeping the rag held to her face, and taking the time to process everything that's happened to her. An indiscernible amount of time passes before Cheyanne looks up and sees a break in the trees ahead.

Moments later, Cheyanne and Strider step out of the tree line, Cheyanne raising her free hand to shield her eyes from the sudden brightness of the sun. She squints, eyes watering, and waits the necessary few moments for her vision to adjust. Then she brings the cloth from her face, her mouth dropping a little.

"Woah," she says as she looks around. Before her is the largest expanse of flat land she has ever seen, dotted here and there with distant rock formations. For a moment, she can almost hear a melody on the wind, high and soft. But when she strains her ears to hear more, the music fades. Huh, must have been her imagination.

The exposed sky has to be the clearest blue she has ever seen, completely unpolluted by smog. On her right looms a mountain range, distant mist coiling around its peaks just visible to the naked eye.

The sight of these mountains makes Cheyanne shiver a little and she quickly turns her head away from them, unnerved. "What is this place?"

"Rohan, the land of the horse lords," Strider says as he steps in front her. "May I?" He gestures to her face, indicating he wants to take a closer look. Cheyanne, touched by his politeness, merely nods and lets him step a bit closer to her and examine her cut. "The bleeding has stopped. But you will not be without a scar."

"Great-," Cheyanne says. "-because I was _dying_ to have a souvenir to remember my _warm_ welcome by."

For half a second, Strider eyes her with a profoundly confused expression on his face, then he cracks a little smile. "Then you are in luck."

Cheyanne returns his smile and, folding the cloth so he won't get any blood on him, hands it back to Strider. "Which way are we going?"

Strider tucks the cloth back into his bag and points to a break in the mountains to Cheyanne's right. "To the Gap of Rohan. We should reach it by tomorrow evening."

Cheyanne shades her eyes with her hand again and follows as Strider begins to walk. "It's not _that_ far away, is it?"

"Do not let how close it looks deceive you," Strider says, setting a quick pace.

"And our final destination?"

"A town known as Bree." The tone of his voice indicates any conversation in that vein is not welcome.

Cheyanne decides not to press him about it and instead concentrates on lengthening her stride to keep up, stumbling a little on the uneven ground. "I see why they call you Strider now." He's not that much taller than Cheyanne, perhaps two inches or a bit more but, boy, does he use every inch of his height in his pace.

He merely glances at her and makes no comment, but not without the light of amusement in his eyes.

The rest of the day's travel is spent in relative silence, with splatters of conversation here and there. As it turns out, Strider isn't much of a talker and by the end of the first day of pretty much silent walking, she feels as if she could cut off her legs and she wouldn't know the difference. And thanks to the brisk pace Strider set, they made pretty good progress but at the expense of Cheyanne's muscles. She can't remember the last time she actually exercised. Between work and her senior year of college, she'd barely had time to breathe, let alone put aside time to work out. Between the sudden and pretty extreme change in activeness and the heat of the sun beating down on her, Cheyanne was more than ready to stop by the time they did just as the sun was beginning to set. They set up camp in the shadow of the mountains behind a large outcropping of rock Strider deemed enough cover to light a small fire. There they spent a quiet evening, an evening in which Cheyanne had her first taste of lembas bread. It filled her a heck of a lot more than she thought it would and when Strider informs her calmly that the bread is elvish, Cheyanne nearly choked on her last bite.

"Did you just say _elvish bread_?" Wizards and evil monsters? Yeah, sure, why not add elves in there too?

Strider looks up at her, dropping the stick he was using to poke at the fire. "Yes, are there not elves where you come from?"

Cheyanne shakes her head. "No. No wizards or- or those monsters from earlier either." She gestures with an incredulous hand. "The next thing you're gonna tell me is you have- _dwarves_ too!"

There's a long moment of silence where Strider merely looks at her.

Cheyanne slumps back against the rock. "Of course you have dwarves." She throws up her hands. "That's it, I'm going to sleep. I've had enough of major, life changing discoveries for one day."

Strider merely shakes his head with a ghost of a smile and tosses her the cloak he shed near the start of their walk that day. "Here. The nights can be cold."

Cheyanne thanks him, wraps up in the cloak, and lays down on the hard ground. Before sleep takes her, she finds herself hoping the traveling time ahead of her won't be as rough as the first day was.


End file.
